


Screaming

by AmyNChan



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Wanted to rewrite this scene, i hope i did it justice, opening of game 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyNChan/pseuds/AmyNChan
Summary: Amid all the death and destruction, she could only hear her breathing.  It was the loudest thing, but could it be counted as screaming among the silence?





	Screaming

Screaming.  It always felt like screaming.  As though the sound were caught somewhere in her vocal folds, desperate to get out.

But she wouldn’t let it.

Genevieve Shepard sat in front of the window, watching the starlight twinkle in the distance.  Zero atmosphere meant that there technically wasn’t any wind to cut through outside the Normandy, but some anomaly wrapped itself around the ship to give the illusion of bypassing wind.  It was a small wonder of the universe that she was grateful for.  The illusion of moving wind was better than the disconcerting view of not moving at all.  Movement happened all the same, but it felt better to imagine that you were watching it happen rather than face an empty and motionless sky.

Moments like this at once subdued and heightened her desire to make some sort of noise.  Something that would let the universe know just how stressed and tired she was.  How frustrated she was with this lurking and shadowy threat.  How, even though she would obviously rise to the occasion to defend all living creatures in the galaxy from total extinction on her own if need be, it would be nice to be taken seriously by the very creatures she’d sworn to protect.

The Reapers were the council’s boogeymen, and they felt far too old for stories of impending and total annihilation.  Their imaginary boogeymen were her waking nightmare.

She clenched her teeth shut, keeping herself in silence.  Perhaps no one could hear anything outside the ship, but there was still a full team on board and she knew that she could alert every single member to her distress if she wanted to with her voice alone.  Screaming wasn’t an option.  Investigating geth outposts was little better.  But any investigation that could show the council that the Reapers were a true threat that needed to be taken seriously was worth undertaking.

Even if it made her want to scream.

For a moment, she thought she had lost her inner battle.  The ear-splitting sound that resonated within the ship was shriek-like enough.  A moment later her guard was up and she had swiftly exited the port side to rejoin her crew.

The Normandy was under attack.

The diagnostics panel was easy enough to locate and Shepard wasted no time rooting out the damages.  Portside wingspan was compromised, fires on all floors, the central command decimated.

The Normandy was going down.

She entered in the necessary codes.  There was nothing they could do to save the ship, but damned if she wouldn’t save her crew.

“Shepard!”

The commander swiftly put her helmet on, having fully realized that the air supply was limited enough as it was.  She then turned to her crew mate to comfort them.  “Distress beacon is ready for launch.”

“Will the Alliance get here in time?”  The real question was palpable in their voice.  Would they survive?

Shepard made to answer when the entire ship shook.  Before either of them could hit the floor, Shepard reached out her hands to steady her friend.  As soon as they were both stable, she reached for a fire extinguisher.  “The Alliance won’t abandon us now.”  She looked for any flames that would bar a safe exit.  “We just need to hold on.”

A moment of brief searching revealed nothing that would prevent anyone from making their way to off the ship.  She then tossed the extinguisher over with another order: “Get everyone onto the escape shuttles.”

Shepard made her way to one of the electrical panels.  Cutting off some of the power would help prevent more fires from starting.  Her teammate wasted no time in attempting to extinguish the flames.  “Joker’s still in the cockpit; he won’t evacuate.  I’m not leaving either.”

Shepard loved her crew and she knew that this wasn’t said out of anything but the best intentions and that it came from the most loyal of places.  But the ship around them was burning and if they didn’t act fast, more lives could be lost.  She turned and imbued her voice with as much authority as possible.  “I _need_ you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles,” she commanded, grabbing the fire extinguisher.  “I’ll take care of Joker.”

“Shepard—!”

Protests.  She should have expected them.  She glared at her friend, her teammate, and gave them the order only once more.  Only a moment’s hesitation stood between them and a reluctant ‘aye, aye’.  When Shepard saw that her instructions were being carried out, she finished sending out the beacons and pushed through to the cockpit.

She heard the evac shuttles leave their ports as she hurried through.  Of the twelve—six on each side—eleven fired off successfully.  She continued to push forward as she heard Joker’s voice repeatedly calling out an S.O.S.

Reaching the main deck was surreal.  Her gravitational boots prevented her from running, so she was forced to walk slowly through the devastation.  The quiet and the eerie and the ethereal.  Loose objects floated around her, appearing stationary as the ship and all that lay within it fell. 

Amid all the death and destruction, she could only hear her breathing.  It was the loudest thing, but could it be counted as screaming among the silence?

She made her way past zero gravity chairs to get into the cockpit.  It was a small miracle that the barrier still held given the damages.  She could see her pilot frantically going through every protocol, everything he knew to save his ship.

“Come on, Joker.”  She held onto his seat for stability as the ship around them shuddered and groaned.  “We have to get out of here.”

“No!  I won’t abandon the Normandy!  I can still save her!”  If his actions hadn’t been frantic, his voice was.  Shepard only needed a moment to see that he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“The Normandy’s lost.  Going down with the ship won’t change that.”  A brief gesture to the destruction all around them seemed to help her helmsman make his choice.

He nodded solemnly, a swift goodbye to the ship that had been in his care for so long, and steeled his nerves.  “Yeah, okay.  Help me up.”

The next few seconds happened too quickly, yet every moment felt like an eternity.  Their assailant fired another beam.  It broke through their plating.  Joker wasn’t moving.  She grabbed his arm.  She may have broken it.  He hobbled.  He was inside the shuttle.  Another beam.  The ship shook.  She lost her hold. 

“Commander!”

A moment.  That was all she had: a moment.  There was no way around the beam.  No way through.  The ship was falling apart around them both.  If the evac shuttle didn’t eject soon, it wouldn’t have enough propulsion to get safely away from the debris.  It wouldn’t eject if the ship was too damaged to send it out.  Every second she wasted risked his life even further.

“Shepard!”

Her hold broke.  She pushed the button.

Another shudder of the debris catapulted her into what used to be a wall of the Normandy.  It took her twenty-four seconds before she realized that her oxygen had been hit.

She scrambled to right to the heart of the issue, her hands clawing desperately at her depleting air.  But her tank was already half-empty.  She struggled to breathe, but the vacuum around her was stealing what little breath she could find.

Her teeth were no longer grit, and her breathing was no longer steady.  She had lost everyone and everything in a matter of moments.  It was enough to truly make the commander scream.

But now, among the stars and alone and dying, with space stealing the last of her breaths, she never could.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back and it's been stuck in my 'must get this edited' folder for a while. XD I might be pulling some of these out and posting them, so keep an eye out for them, please. *^_^*
> 
> I saw a lot of rewrites of this scene and wanted to do my own. I hope I did it justice. *^_^*


End file.
